Vitae philosophorum

Rhetoricians and all who talked for reputation he used to call thrice human, meaning thereby thrice wretched. An ignorant rich man he used to call the sheep with the golden fleece. Seeing a notice on the house of a profligate, To be sold, he said, I knew well that after such surfeiting you would throw up the owner. To a young man who complained of the number of people who annoyed him by their attentions he said, Cease to hang out a sign of invitation. Of a public bath which was dirty he said, When people have bathed here, where are they to go to get clean? There was a stout musician whom everybody depreciated and Diogenes alone praised. When asked why, he said, Because being so big, he yet sings to his lute and does not turn brigand.

The musician who was always deserted by his audience he greeted with a Hail chanticleer, and when asked why he so addressed him, replied, Because your song makes every one get up. A young man was delivering a set speech, when Diogenes, having filled the front fold of his dress with lupins, began to eat them, standing right opposite to him. Having thus drawn off the attention of the assemblage, he said he was greatly surprised

When some one reproached him with his exile, his reply was, Nay, it was through that, you miserable fellow, that I came to be a philosopher. Again, when some one reminded him that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, And I them, said he, to home-staying. Once he saw an Olympic victor tending sheep and thus accosted him: Too quickly, my good friend, have you left Olympia for Nemea.[*](Shepherd’s Bush.) Being asked why athletes are so stupid, his answer was, Because they are built up of pork and beef. He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, To get practice in being refused. In asking alms —as he did at first by reason of his poverty— he used this form: If you have already given to anyone else, give to me also; if not, begin with me.

On being asked by a tyrant what bronze is best for a statue, he replied, That of which Harmodius and Aristogiton were moulded. Asked how Dionysius treated his friends, Like purses, he replied; so long as they are full, he hangs them up, and, when they are empty, he throws them away. Some one lately wed had set up on his door the notice:

The son of Zeus, victorious Heracles,
1. Dwells here; let nothing evil enter in.

Good men he called images of the gods, and love the business of the idle. To the question what is wretched in life he replied, An old man destitute. Being asked what creature’s bite is the worst, he said, Of those that are wild a sycophant’s; of those that are tame a flatterer’s. Upon seeing two centaurs very badly painted, he asked, Which of these is Chiron? (worse man). Ingratiating speech he compared to honey used to choke you. The stomach he called livelihood’s Charybdis.[*](i.e. a whirlpool engulfing a man’s livelihood.) Hearing a report that Didymon the flute-player had been caught in adultery, his comment was, His name alone is sufficient to hang him. To the question why gold is pale, his reply was, Because it has so many thieves plotting against it. On seeing a woman carried in a litter, he remarked that the cage was not in keeping with the quarry.